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Abstract The development of advanced forming technologies that deal with tailor welded blanks (TWBs) has made major changes in different sectors of industrial applications, especially in automotive and aerospace industries. Tailor welded blanks are composed of two or more similar or dissimilar sheet metals with the same or different thicknesses that are welded together - usually using laser or friction stir welding - before being formed. The objective of this research is to study the factors that limits the formability of welded dual phase (DP600) and low carbon (DC05) steel blanks by conducting simple forming and deep drawing experiments to record the material behavior and determine the different parameters (e.g. translation or deviation of the weld line from its original location, sheet thinning, type and location of failure, wear of the die due to the weld line movement…etc.). A 3D models has been built in order to simulate both welding and subsequent forming operations using commercially available Simufact ® finite element software based on MSC® Marc solver. The models have been validated experimentally. There are remarkable technical benefits, in addition to high commercial potential especially in automotive branch, for the use of TWBs in forming operations will result in material saving, weight reduction and hence fuel consumption reduction, less number of parts, less spot welds, lower manufacturing costs, optimized mechanical properties. |